


I Need You Too Much For You to Leave

by BatmanWhoLaughss



Series: Kanera Prompts [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e13 The Protector of Concord Dawn, F/M, Hera Syndulla Needs A Hug, Injury, Injury Recovery, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Pre-Star Wars: Rebels, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Protective Hera Syndulla, Protective Kanan Jarrus, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27411052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatmanWhoLaughss/pseuds/BatmanWhoLaughss
Summary: Tumblr Prompt fromthis list#18: "Things you said when you were scared"Sometimes, the mission doesn't always go smoothly. Sometimes they run into more troopers than they expected or their contact gets spooked, or the whole op turns out to be a bust and they walk away empty-handed.And sometimes, one of them gets hurt.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: Kanera Prompts [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845700
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	I Need You Too Much For You to Leave

**Author's Note:**

> We all need some good injury recovery angst with feelings in our lives, don't we?

Kanan’s finally asleep, snoring softly as one arm hangs off of the narrow bunk beside him. Hera’s hand is curled tightly in his, her thumb tracing small circles there as she tries to offer whatever small comfort she can.

He’s still bruised and bloody, and the bandage is an ugly brownish-red where it covers the wound in his side. He never saw it coming, and she’d been so preoccupied with trying to find her contact that she missed the moment the Rodian bounty hunter drove a knife into Kanan’s stomach. She barely heard what he was yelling– something about payback for Onderon that Hera’s sure she’ll worry about later, after Kanan wakes up. She was frozen solid as Kanan’s loud grunt of pain and panicked expression burned itself into her memory. If it hadn’t been for Zeb, _none_ of them would have made it out of that cantina in one piece. 

She barely remembers the trip back to the Ghost. Kanan was slung over Zeb’s shoulder, holding his hand against his side to try and stem the bleeding while fading in and out of consciousness. Hera’s heart was beating so fast, and she could barely breathe while they patched him up. Zeb did most of the work, once he saw that Hera wasn’t going to be much help besides offering occasional muted assistance. 

Zeb left them alone a while ago, leaving Hera a blanket and cup of steaming caf once it became clear that she was absolutely _not_ leaving Kanan’s side anytime soon. She knows she should get some sleep, but she can’t bring herself to close her eyes. 

She’ll sleep once he wakes up. Once seeing his lazy smile and hearing his voice takes away the image of him lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. 

She’s still trembling, pulling the blanket even closer to her as she tightens her grip on his hand. Even while he sleeps, his brow is furrowed, like he’s in pain, and her other hand comes up to brush his hair out of his face in a motion he’s told her before is soothing.

“You are _not_ going to die on me, you hear me?” Hera whispers. She knows he can’t, but it helps, even so. Zeb said he’s going to be fine and she trusts his judgement, but she can’t help the paralyzing fear that grips her at the thought of never seeing those brilliant blue eyes again. She can’t lose him now–not when this thing between them is still so new. 

There’s a lump in her throat as she takes a shaky breath. She’s been sitting here for hours, and her whole body is starting to cramp from being in this chair for so long. Part of her wants to crawl into bed alongside him, to hold him and never let him go, but her rational side is worried about hurting him. So she sighs, lifting her arm to press her lips against the back of his hand.

It’s slightly terrifying, how much she cares about him, and how scared she was when she saw him go down. How every memory she had with him flashed through her mind as she met his fearful eyes with her own. “I’m sorry, love. You’re gonna get through this.” _You have to._ “I’m not ready to lose you yet.” Her eyes are rapidly getting blurry, and a stray tear leaks out as she squeezes his hand one more time. They pass the rest of the night like this, Hera watching the steady rise and fall of Kanan’s chest as her hand remains stubbornly twined with his. 

At some point she must have dozed off, because the next thing she knows, she feels a slight pressure on her hand. It jolts her awake, and instantly she sits upright. His eyes are open, and he blinks up at her in confusion. “Hera?”

She should be embarrassed at how quickly she starts to cry, the tears that refused to fall last night coming in full force now. “I’m here, love. How are you feeling?” 

Kanan groans, his other hand moving to the bandage at his side. “Been better.” Then he reaches up to wipe her tears away with a feather light touch, and Hera can’t help but notice the way his arm shakes as he does. She makes a mental note to get him something to eat and drink as soon as possible. “Hey,” he mumbles, his voice impossibly soft. “ ‘M alright. Not the first time I’ve been stabbed in a bar.”

She absolutely _refuses_ to consider the implications of that statement, so instead she focuses on the way his hand comes up to rest against her cheek. “You’re an _ass_ , you know?” she says, letting out a nervous laugh. “You scared me half to death.”

His eyes are still soft, and he’s looking at her with so much pure affection that it makes her blush. “I’m okay, Hera.” He moves their joined hands to rest against his heart. “See? Still beating.” 

Hera sighs, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his. “Don’t _ever_ scare me like that again,” she says. 

“10-4, Captain.” Kanan’s smile gets bigger, and suddenly he’s moving, shifting over on the narrow bunk. “C’mere.” 

She almost tells him no, almost tells him off for moving too much and nearly undoing all the hard work Zeb did to patch him up. But the bigger part of her needs to be close to him, so instead she just laughs, helping him move over as she crawls into the bed and curls up against his uninjured side. Kanan sighs when she settles against him, dragging the blanket up over them both as his lips find hers. 

“If I knew you’d be looking after me like this, I’d have gotten stabbed sooner,” Kanan says, chuckling softly.

“Don’t even joke about that.” Her eyes turn serious again as she thinks back to the night before. Then her face falls. “I didn’t even see him coming,” she whispers, her hand reaching for his again.

“Neither did I,” Kanan says. “But we’re both still in one piece.”

Hera nods, flashing him a small smile. Her lips find his once more. “Go back to sleep, love. I’m waking you up in a couple hours to check those bandages.” 

Kanan laughs, but his eyes are serious. “You, too. You look like hell.”

“Rude.”

When Zeb comes to check on them a few hours later, Hera’s head is resting on Kanan’s chest, and his arm is curled around her waist like he never wants to let go. He doesn’t bother waking them, just shakes his head with a fond smile as he makes his way back to the galley.

* * *

They bring Hera in on a stretcher. 

She looks smaller than Kanan has ever seen her, tiny and fragile and broken in a way he _never_ thought she’d ever be. He’s more afraid than he’s been in a long, _long_ time, the fear still piercing his heart like knives like it has been ever since Hera’s A-Wing emerged from hyperspace in flames. 

She’s gotten hurt on missions before. They both have, over the years, and they’ve had to patch the other up more times to count. But she’s never been through something this bad, and he’s frozen to the spot as the medical droids fit an oxygen mask over her face. Sabine gives him the details, about the Protectors’ ambush and the attack, but he’s not listening. Not really. He’s fully focused on Hera, trying to sense that spark of energy and life that’s so uniquely hers. It’s _much_ too faint for his liking, and he nearly sways on his feet when he feels how fragile it is.

The medics swarm around her immediately, and despite Kanan’s protests he’s shunted to one side of the room as they hurry her off to the ship’s infirmary. He moves to follow them, unable to think about anything else but _she needs me,_ when the medical droid stops him in his tracks. It’s talking to him, saying something about how he needs to wait outside and he can’t be in there with her, but the words barely register. He’s _angry_ , yelling that he’s going to cut the damn droid in half if he doesn’t get out of the way, when he’s stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. He rounds on whoever it is, and when he sees Zeb, standing behind him with a sympathetic look on his face, he shrugs his hand away. 

“I’m not leaving her alone,” Kanan growls, stalking towards the door of the infirmary and intent on parking himself by Hera’s side. _She wouldn’t leave me alone._

“Kanan,” Zeb says, his voice soft. “Let the medics do their jobs. There’s nothing you can do for her now.” 

His brain knows that Zeb’s right, but his heart refuses to listen, and it isn’t until Zeb grabs him by both shoulders and almost lifts him off the floor entirely that he stops moving towards the infirmary. He lets out a shaky sigh, all the fear he’s feeling coming out in one unsteady breath as he deflates. 

“She’s gonna be okay, Kanan. She’s strong, you _know_ she is.” 

He does know– Hera’s strength never ceases to amaze him, but he can’t help but picture the worst possible outcome in his mind. An image of the last person he really cared about falling face-first in the dirt as the clone troopers shot her in the back flashes behind his eyes, and he shudders. 

“She has to be,” he whispers, and ordinarily he’d be embarrassed by how vulnerable he sounds, but now he doesn’t care. All he cares about is Hera. “I can’t do this without her.”

\-----

It feels like hours before the medic exits the infirmary. Kanan hasn’t moved from where he was parked outside, but Zeb retreated back to the galley to keep an eye on the kids once he was confident that Kanan wasn’t going to bust down the door to the medbay. Immediately, Kanan tenses again, as the droid walks over to where he’s standing.

“She’s going to be alright,” it says, and Kanan lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “She’s resting, but you can see her now.” Its metal eyes stare impassively at him, and he’s moving towards the door before the droid even finishes speaking. 

She looks a little less pale than she did before. Some of the color has come back into her face, but she has a bandage wrapped around her head and more on her arms. She’s hooked up to so many different machines that Kanan’s knees are suddenly wobbling beneath him. There’s a chair in the far corner of the room, and he hurriedly grabs it, sitting down next to her bed and reaching to grab her hand in his own. His finger finds the base of her wrist, where her pulse is faint and flighty but still _there_ , and the feel of it thrumming beneath his hand calms him down a little bit more. 

He tries to take deep breaths, gingerly lifting her hand to press his lips against her palm. And suddenly he’s angry again, furious at Fenn Rau and the Protectors for doing this to her. He has to stubbornly work to keep his breathing even as he watches Hera sleep. 

“You scared me half to death,” Kanan whispers, his eyes shining again. “When I saw your fighter in flames, I thought…” He swallows down the lump that suddenly forms in his throat, and a few minutes of silence passes before he speaks again. “Come back soon, love. I need you.” He spends the next hour curled up in that chair, whispering that he loves her, that he’s _terrified_ of losing her and he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. He knows she can’t hear him, but she needs to know all the same, and it calms the anxiety raging in his heart a little bit.

Finally, he sighs, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. He knows what he has to do, what Hera would _want_ him to do, but it still hurts like hell to tear himself away from her bedside. He hates leaving her alone like this, and it goes against every instinct in his body, but they still have a job to do, and Hera would want him to put the mission first. As he stands up, he squeezes her hand once more. “If you’re not awake when I get back, I’m waking you up,” he says, trying to sound light-hearted as he leans down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll be back soon, Captain. I promise.”

\-----

Later, after they bring Fenn Rau back onto the ship and Sabine finally leaves her perch at Hera’s side, the two of them are alone again. The medical droid is fussing, muttering that she needs to rest, but when they both glare at it– Hera looking as fierce as she can while still covered in bruises and bandages– it begrudgingly lets Kanan stay. He doesn’t miss a beat, moving to stand closer to the bedside and reaching for her hand. 

Hera grunts as she shifts, and his arms flail as he tries to steady her. Finally she manages to sit upright, with Kanan’s help. “You shouldn’t be moving too much,” he murmurs, keeping his voice soft. The small grunts of pain she’s making pull at his heart.

“I’m fine. Just restless.”

“Like hell you are,” Kanan says, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand. “Just stay still, okay? You’ll be out of here soon enough.”

She must hear something in his voice, because she frowns, reaching up to smooth the crease in his forehead. He lets out a shaky sigh, leaning his forehead against hers as he drops into the chair by her bed. 

“That was risky, what you did,” Hera says, and he can’t help but look up at her in surprise. 

“What _I_ did? You almost–” He cuts himself off, unable to say the words out loud. Hera dying is still an unthinkable concept to him. Hera gives him a soft smile, reaching to pull the tie from his hair and running her fingers through the soft strands the way she knows he likes. 

“I thought I was going to lose you for a second there,” Kanan whispers.

Hera’s still smiling as she leans up to kiss his lips. Instinctively, one hand comes up to rest against the back of her neck, but he keeps his touches light. Her mouth is warm and soft and _alive_ against his, and he silently thanks the Force that today didn’t have a very different outcome. 

Hera pulls away a few minutes later. “I’m alright, love. We’re both still in one piece.”

It feels achingly familiar to all those years ago, when he got stabbed in that shady cantina on a moon he’s forgotten the name of. His bottom lip trembles as he takes in the bruises, much darker now that time has passed. There’s a darker pattern of bruising along her shoulder, where she knocked against the ship’s dashboard, and the thought of just how close he came to never seeing her smile again makes him ache.

“I love you, y’know?” He opens his eyes, trying to tell her everything he’s thinking without using words. He’s never been good at saying how he feels, but a simple ‘I love you’ doesn’t even _begin_ to describe how completely and utterly lost he would be without Hera Syndulla, or how deep his feelings for her truly ran. 

But even with all the bandages, with the swollen eye and bruised cheek and bandaged lek, her answering smile is breathtakingly beautiful, soft and sweet and open in a way she rarely shows. “I love you, too, Kanan.” 

He presses a kiss against her palm. “You should get some rest,” Hera says in a low voice. But Kanan’s already shaking his head.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he replies, leaning back in the chair and keeping hold of her hand. “I’ll sleep when you’re back on the Ghost.”

She almost says something, but Kanan sees it the moment the sedative starts to kick in and helps her to lie back down. She’s asleep in another few minutes with minimal grumbling, and Kanan, true to his word, stretches out beside her.

When he wakes up the next morning with a sore back and a stiff neck, it’s worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on twitter if you want to keep in touch! @targaryenjedii


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